In the context of device security and the like, a spoofing attack refers to a technique whereby an unauthorised entity attempts to “spoof” a system in order to gain illegitimate access to a restricted function.
A particular class of spoofing occurs in contexts where image-based authentication or other image-based verification processes are used. In such cases, a user may attempt to spoof the system using a pre-captured photograph or image of another user. In this context, anti-spoofing refers to techniques of detecting whether an entity, which may exhibit what are ostensibly human characteristics, is actually a real, living being or is a non-living entity masquerading as such (spoofing entity). This may also be referred to as liveness detection.
Such techniques have, for example, been implemented in modern mobile devices (such as smartphones) to provide anti-spoofing in the context of biometric authentication.